Law school this year, but I recently taught English in China. A uni grad with a B.Sc. (Bio, French), former Parliamentary tour guide (Ottawa, Canada), and a survivor of Lille (France).

January 20, 2007

You Know You've Been...I've seen a few of these floating around, and here are a few funny ones that I can relate to. There's another 300 of them posted at ChinaRant.comYou know you have been in China too long when...- You forget what clean air smells like- Forks feel funny- Your eating manners in restaurants are now totally shot. Elbows on tables and spitting food out onto your plate is now seen as being dead classy- You barely flinch when you see a small child emptying his bowels in the street- You eat every kind of meat off the bone, and spit the bones on the table- You draw characters on your hand to make yourself understood- Grown men and women often say hello to you, and when you reply they run away giggling- When you go to the toilet you start bringing your own toilet paper- You can pick up any type of food using just your chopsticks... even peanuts- You can't decide if you love or hate the country you're living in- You see nothing wrong with standing on a white stripe in the middle of a highway while cars whiz past you at 90kph - You don't blink an eye when a complete stranger wants to take a photo of you with his family - You eat soup with chopsticks - You use Kleenex for table napkins - You are accustomed to seeing people's heads popping up and down in the DVD you are watching- You buy a movie that hasn't been released theatrically yet at home...- You no longer question why the expiration date on the milk you just bought is two months from now - You complain about the price of chocolate bars...- You know which chocolate is real and which chocolate is glorified butter- When you go to a park and you can't walk on the grass - The smell of stinky dofu doesn't faze you anymore - You start to wonder if the chocolate ice cream you find in the store is even chocolate... sure it is brown, but it doesn't taste anything like the stuff back home!- You point out foreigners to your Chinese friends even though you're foreign yourself- Other foreigners seem foreign to you- You know words in Chinese for which you don't know the translation in English- You pick your nose, burp, fart, and scratch without thinking anything of it- You call home and your family tell you to speak faster and stop correcting their grammar and pronunciation - You don't have any idea what something is, but you'll eat it anyway- You completely ignore most people who say hello to you- You have a conversation while sidestepping feces, vomit, and mysterious green puddles on the sidewalk without blinking- You eat cake with chopsticks- You constantly wonder if everything has been boiled long enough- You convince yourself that it doesn't matter how dirty the cooks' hands are, cooking will fix it- You love tofu because there's nothing to spit out and it doesn't have any taste- You start saying 'play computer' 'I very like' and other assorted chinglish- You've got a pre-paid ticket with a booked seat for a soft-seat train or plane, but you still run like mad to make sure you get a seat- Smoking does less harm to your lungs than breathing - You have absolutely no sense of traffic rules- You start picking at other people's dinner plates before they even offer you a taste- You forget that the other person needs to finish speaking before you can start- You have a pinky fingernail an inch or two long- You no longer wonder how someone who earns US$ 400.00 per month can drive a Mercedes- You think that a $7 shirt is a rip-off

7 comments:

Oh, My God!!!!!!!No word........That's EXACTLLY what it is in China!!!!!!! (Can't stop laughing)

That was so classic summary.The most classic comments I would like to point out:

1.The smell of stinky dofu doesn't faze you anymore. (I don't know why I like the stinky toufu, but I love it...)

2.You have a conversation while sidestepping feces, vomit, and mysterious green puddles on the sidewalk without blinking. (Sooooo funny, the environment is horrible...)

3.You've got a pre-paid ticket with a booked seat for a soft-seat train or plane, but you still run like mad to make sure you get a seat. (Nothing is guaranteed, and there is no trust for everything you do, eating, taking a seat, buying a stuff that might have something will kill you...)

In China, you must be aware of a lot of things that you have never been aware of before, which are rediculous. And you will feel something that must be right is wrong. There is no honesty, no trust, no integrity, no truth, everything could be a lie. Just like the government control the media; we have no integrated idea about what's happening in the world; governers are corrupt; people are living in a country that looks good and developing, but there are still a lot of problems inside to solve..... we have a LONG WAY to go........

That's it. When you come home, we are chaining you to your bed for 3 months and hiding the dog. We have already bought some tofu for you. It will be just about ready when you are here in 6 months. We are looking for a pair of underwear for you with activated charcoal in it...

Take anything off our plates, and you'll have your chopsticks taken away for a week.